Thailand

longtails on Sunrise beach/ on our way back to our chalet

a little puppet livening up one of the laid back restaurants on Walking Street

Koh Lipe (3km long) 04.02.10 - 08.02.10

Koh Lipe is the first Thai island on the way north out of Malaysia and it's our first taste of paradise with clear, turquoise waters and soft white sand. We arrive by speedboat from Langkawi with our passports being taken by one of the crew who has them all stamped and checked for us- very easy. A longtail* boat ferries us from the speedboat platform to the shore where we hop off into the knee deep water and collect our bags to cross the island to our resort. Lipe has one concrete street called 'Walking Street' and it has been constructed purely for tourists as it's lined with eating places, Thai massage parlours, snorkelling and dive shops and souvenier stalls. It's also a means for the large number of scooters to cross the island- there are no cars here, but the locals all drive little mopeds. It takes only ten minutes walkingto cross the island and we find our resort on the opposite beach, Sunrise beach. There are less longtails moored up on this beach so it's quieter than Pattaya beach, where we docked on the speedboat. We waste no time in getting into the sea for a cooling swim and spend most of the rest of the day sitting out under the shade of the trees reading up about Thailand. We do make the decision to train for our PADI open water diving certificate and book into Forra Dive resort to begin our course the next day. It takes us three days to become proficient enough to pass with loads of theory to learn and an exam and four open water dives out in the Andaman Sea to get us accustomed to using the equipment and being confident with all the procedures. Diving can be a daunting activity because of the very nature of breathing underwater. It's a foreign concept to us humans and it takes a bit of getting used to, including the difference in pressure under metres of liquid. The gear itself weighs a tonne out of water but as soon as you descend into the depths it becomes light as a feather and you float weightless, as if in space. Regis, our French dive instructor, was keen for us to practise our ascent procedures, coming up slowly so as not to get decompression sickness or nitrogen narcosis, including an ascent technique where, if you're out of air, you use your buddy's alternate air source to breathe from- scary stuff. It's definitely worth learning though because the underwater coral reefs are stunning environments. On our last dive of the course we'd completed all our skills training and were able to simply follow Regis on a tour of the reef, off the shores of Ko Adang, a neighbouring island to Koh Lipe and part of the Ko Tarutao National Marine Park. The coral was beautiful with banks of bright fuschia pink and purple varieties interspersed with intense blue and pink anemones and orange branch-like formations. We saw a huge bright blue crown of thorns starfish and big clam shells gently opening and closing. The fish weren't half bad either and included a yellow box fish, grey puffer, numerous butterfly, parrot and angel fish, two lion fish (which were beautiful with their long red and white tendrils) a stone fish and several ominous moray eels, their big heads poking out of holes in the rock.

*Longtails are so called because of their long propellor shaft which connects to a loud, clanging motor on the back. They are the preferred means of transport on Lipe and can be hired like taxis to take you to any beach or other island.